SINGAPORE — The four former SMRT bus drivers who instigated an illegal strike last November may have been motivated by a sense of grievance, but a senior district judge yesterday said they had set out with “the clear consciousness that it would cause disruption and inconvenience” for public transport here.

Gao Yue Qiang, 32; Liu Xiangying, 33; and Wang Xianjie, 39; were jailed six weeks after each pleaded guilty to a charge of instigating the illegal strike, while He Jun Ling, 32, who had also made an online post inciting fellow drivers to strike, was jailed seven weeks. His sentence “reflects the larger extent of his culpability”, Senior District Judge See Kee Oon said.

Noting the sentence he had earlier meted out to another SMRT bus driver, 38-year-old Bao Feng Shan — who was sentenced to six weeks’ jail in December for participating in the illegal strike — Judge See agreed with the prosecution’s call for a deterrent sentence, given the “clear premeditation and planning” on the part of the four drivers.

The men were among 171 China-born drivers who took part in the Nov 26 strike and the 88 who stayed away again the next day. They were protesting against pay and living conditions. Apart from making online forum and chat group posts, the drivers also personally visited dormitory units to garner support from other drivers.

Mr Mark Goh, the lawyer for Gao and Liu, argued in his mitigation plea that the law “was legislated to target ‘hotheads’ and ‘irresponsible leaders’, who would make no bones to disregard proper dispute resolution channels,even if that existed”.

But his clients were uninformed and aggrieved workers who had exhausted all avenues to negotiate, while SMRT had failed to take their grievances seriously, he contended.

Mr Choo Zheng Xi, He’s lawyer, said his client was “deeply remorseful for the inconvenience he caused on the 26th and 27th of November”.

Mr Choo urged the court to “empathise with the situation (He) was in”, adding it was not his client’s intention to alarm the public, nor to unsettle labour relations. “His actions came from a place of deep desperation and despair at his living conditions, discriminatory pay, and a lack of an outlet to express his grievances,” he said.

Irrespective of whether their grievances were valid or otherwise, the judge said the four men’s pleas of guilt signified their awareness that they could not justify taking the law into their own hands.

A particular aggravating factor, he added, was that the four had planned the large-scale strike “ostensibly with the purpose of putting pressure on SMRT to accommodate their demands, but with the clear consciousness that it would cause disruption and inconvenience in the provision of transport services”.

“This had the potential to severely affect the daily lives of all commuters who rely on public transport,” he added. Judge See felt a deterrent sentence was warranted “to ensure that others are not emboldened towards attempting similar displays of disaffection over employment terms or conditions”.

The offence carries the maximum penalty of a year in jail and a S$2,000 fine. Twenty-nine other “active participants” in the strike were repatriated to China in December. AMIR HUSSAIN